1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to the field of intelligence warning and provides a system and method for providing intelligence indications and warning of terrorism. The present invention is applicable to any intelligence topic.
2. Description of Related Art
Note that the following discussion may refer to a number of publications by author(s) and year of publication, and that due to recent publication dates certain publications are not to be considered as prior art vis-à-vis the present invention. Discussion of such publications herein is given for more complete background and is not to be construed as an admission that such publications are prior art for patentability determination purposes.
The focus to improve intelligence warning normally turns to intelligence collection, rather than analysis. Although improvements in collection are needed, these improvements do not address the predominant problems in intelligence warning. Warning failures are rarely due to inadequate intelligence collection, are more frequently due to weak analysis, and are most often due to decision makers ignoring intelligence. Ronald D. Garst, “Fundamentals of Intelligence Analysis,” in Intelligence Analysis ANA 630, no. 1, ed. Joint Military Intelligence College (Washington, D.C.:Joint Military Intelligence College, 2000): 7 (cited hereafter as Garst). Decision makers, however, ignore intelligence largely because analytic product is weak. Hans Heymann Jr., “The Intelligence—Policy Relationship,” in Intelligence Analysis ANA 630, no. 1 ed. Joint Military Intelligence College (Washington, D.C.: Joint Military Intelligence College, 2000): 55 (cited hereafter as Heymann). Thus, the problem points mainly to analysis.
Yet, the trend to focus on collection continues after Sep. 11, 2001, with the Intelligence Community's consensus that terrorism warning improvement can best be achieved by improving collection, rather than analysis.
Empirical research, however, shows that more information does not improve the accuracy of analysts' assessments; it merely improves analysts' certainty in their assessments. Garst, 23; Kam, 55. Additional research even finds, “an intensified collection effort does not necessarily lead to better analysis and more accurate estimates; when the additional information contains a large portion of noise, the risks of another intelligence failure leading to surprise may even increase.” Kam, 55. Furthermore, “it is sometimes assumed that counterterrorism analysis suffers from a dearth of intelligence. Actually the opposite is the problem—there is too much intelligence . . . . As with all intelligence analysts, value-added analysis requires an ability to separate out . . . the signals from the noise.” Mark V. Kauppi, “Counterterrorism Analysis,” Defense Intelligence Journal 11, no. 1, (Winter 2002): 39-53. The evidence suggests there is more value in the available information than current analytical technique reveals.
Hiring smart people does not necessarily lead to good analysis. Many argue that “the best way to ensure high-quality analysis is to bring high quality analysts into the process.” “Making Intelligence Smarter: The Future of U.S. Intelligence,” Report of an Independent Task Force 1996, www.copi.com/articles/intelrpt/cfr.html (23 Jul. 1999). Their reasoning is that many intelligent minds working together are bound to produce a good assessment. They're wrong, according to researchers. J. Edward Russo and Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Decision Traps: The Ten Barriers to Brilliant Decision-Making and How to Overcome Them (New York: Rockefeller Center, 1989), 145 (cited hereafter as Russo). Studies show that, “frequently groups of smart, well-motivated people . . . agree . . . on the wrong solution . . . . They didn't fail because they were stupid. They failed because they followed a poor process in arriving at their decisions.” Russo, 146.
A systematic process is the most effective way to facilitate good analysis. There is a long-standing debate within the Intelligence Community over whether structured techniques work on complex problems, such as terrorism analysis. Robert D. Folker, Jr., Intelligence Analysis in Theater Joint Intelligence Centers: An Experiment in Applying Structured Methods, Occasional Paper, no. 7 (Washington, D.C.: Joint Military Intelligence College, 2000), 7 (cited hereafter as Folker). The non-structured approach has become the norm in the Intelligence Community. Folker, 1. Many analysts argue that structured techniques cannot account for the infinite number of variables involved in complex problems and that intuition can do better. However, research shows that intuitive judgments “seldom take proper account of all the information available.” Russo, 120. People selectively remember information based on the vividness and time since their exposure to it. “People have difficulty keeping more than seven or so ‘chunks’ of information in mind at once.” Russo, 14. Psychological studies show that people tend to ignore evidence that does not support their biases and interpret ambiguous information as confirming their biases. When the mind is overwhelmed with information, that tendency is magnified as part of a simplification technique to reduce the information down to a manageable size. Kam, 102, 106. Furthermore, “intuitive judgments suffer from serious random inconsistencies due to fatigue, boredom, and all the factors that make us human.” Russo, 135. Many people argue that they can avoid these pitfalls by simply being aware of them, but empirical research shows that “tactics can improve your success beyond what you can achieve simply by being aware of the dangers.” Russo, 115.
Many analysts think structured methods take too long. Folker, 7. If, however, an analyst makes data entry to the structured framework part of his daily routine, and even automates certain parts of the process for which he has made predetermined (intuitive) choices, then methodology can in fact save time rather than consume it.
Intuition cannot be eliminated from intelligence analysis because a great deal of intelligence information is qualitative—“information that can be captured that is not numerical in nature.” William M. K. Trochim, “Qualitative Data,” Cornell University: Research Methods Knowledge Base 2002, http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/qualdata.htm (31 May 2002). Because non-numerical information cannot be counted, an analyst must assess its value subjectively using intuition.
A key misunderstanding in the debate over intuition versus structured technique is that an analyst must choose either intuition or structured technique. Folker, 1. In fact, both intuition and structured technique can be used together in a systematic process. “Anything that is qualitative can be assigned meaningful numerical values. These values can then be manipulated to help us achieve greater insight into the meaning of the data and to help us examine specific hypotheses.” William M. K. Trochim, “The Qualitative Debate,” Cornell University: Research Methods Knowledge Base 2002, trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/qualdeb.htm (31 May 2002). It is not only possible to combine intuition and structure in a system; research shows the combination is more effective than intuition alone. “Considerable research suggests that you will maximize your chances of making the best choice if you find a systematic way to evaluate all the evidence favorable or unfavorable to each possible choice, compare the strength of evidence on each side rigorously, then pick the choice that your system indicates the evidence favors.” Russo, 130. Thus, intelligence analysis must not only apply the art of intuition, but also the science of structured technique.
Finally, regardless of an analyst's individual opinion, decision makers have called on the Intelligence Community to use methodology.                The Rumsfeld Commission noted that “ . . . an expansion of the methodology used by the IC [Intelligence Community] is needed.” . . . [Methodology] helps overcome mindset, keeps analysts who are immersed in a mountain of new information from raising the bar on what they would consider an alarming threat situation, and allows their minds to expand to other possibilities. Keeping chronologies, maintaining databases and arraying data are not fun or glamorous. These techniques are the heavy lifting of analysis, but this is what analysts are supposed to do. If decision makers only needed talking heads, those are readily available elsewhere. Donald Rumsfeld, press conference, quoted in Mary O. McCarthy, “The Mission to Warn: Disaster Looms,” Defense Intelligence Journal 7 no. 2 (Fall 1998): 21.        
Because intuition cannot be eliminated from intelligence analysis, analysts must find a way to limit their vulnerability to the pitfalls of intuition. What would be useful is a methodology that combines intuitive judgments with structured techniques in a way that guards against the pitfalls of intuition and the pitfalls of intelligence warning.
The best known prior art that is related to this invention is an Intelligence Community member organization's method of determining terrorism warning levels for given countries. In the method, analysts give an intuitive rating to four factors on a four-level warning scale and then combine them in an intuitive judgment of an overall country terrorism warning level (on the U.S. four-level scale; the four factors are not identified here for security reasons.